Recipe: Toffee Apple Pancakes

I can never find quite the right pancake recipe when I want it so frequently end up making up my own on the spot. My most recent effort, inspired by a new peanut butter and some browning bananas, turned out really well so I'm sharing it here, so that you can try something similar and also so that I can find it again when the mood takes me!

These pancakes are light and delicious but you can make them as indulgent as you like.

Toffee Apple Pancakes

Makes 6 small pancakes

Ingredients

1 banana
1 egg
1-2 tbsp TPW Toffee Fudge Crunch Peanut Butter Luxe
2 tbsp apple puree
1 tsp chia and flax seeds
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp bicarb
1-2 tsp coconut oil

Method

1. Heat the coconut oil in a pan while you make the pancake batter
2. Put the banana, egg, peanut butter, apple puree, cinnamon, bicarb, chia and flax seeds into a blender or into a jug if you want to use a hand blender. Mix until you have a batter. It will be somewhere between thick American style pancake batter and thin crepe batter.
3. Pour a little of the batter into the hot pan. You're aiming for small saucer size pancakes.
4. When little bubbles start to appear on the top, after 1-2 minutes, flip the pancake over and cook for a further 1-2 minutes.
5. Pop on a plate while you cook the remaining pancakes. Keep warm in a low oven if you wish.
6. Serve with TPW Zero Maple Syrup, apple puree and more peanut butter if you wish. If you want even more indulgence, a little butter between each pancake is extremely tasty!

Recipe : Rum & Raisin Dessert

Tucking into the Whey Hey samples at Gloanna recently got me thinking... I wonder if I can make my own protein-rich dessert? Turns out I can and it's pretty easy. Now I don't pretend to rival Whey Hey in any way shape or form with this but it was quick to make, very delicious and a slightly healthier alternative to ice cream.

May I present... Rum & Raisin Frozen Yogurt!

Mix 250g of greek yogurt (I went full fat) with three scoops of Rum 'n' Raisin Ice Cream flavour protein powder and a handful of raisins or sultanas. Then just pop it in the freezer for a few hours, stirring every hour or so to reduce the size of the ice particles.

You could use any flavour protein powder that takes your fancy. I've got some Mint Choc Brownie flavour which I reckon would be awesome with some chopped pecans, and a Jaffa Cake flavour which I'm itching to mix in with some chocolate orange chips I have hanging around. I'm a big fan of mixing in some frozen fruits, biscuit pieces or nuts to give it a bit of texture.

I found that it needed to be taken out of the freezer for a little while to defrost to a "scoopable" consistency but was worth the wait.

What I liked most about this is that I could make as little or as much as I wanted at a time. I often have ice cream sitting around in my freezer for ages because often, I only want a bit, but this allows me to just make a couple of servings at a time, and then ring the changes next time.

Nutritionals

I've done the sums and compared my dessert with Carte D'or Rum & Raisin Ice cream. They're like for like on kcals but the frozen yogurt has way more protein and half the CHO and sugars. This will vary depending on the brand of protein powder you use and whether you choose to use low fat greek or natural yogurt. I'm sure you could get away with using just 2 scoops of protein powder, which would reduce the kcals even more.

	Rum & Raisin Carte D'or	Rum Raisin Protein Frozen Yogurt
Serving	100g	100g
kcals	200	200
Carbohydrate	24	12
Protein	3	20
Fat	8	8
Sat. Fats	5	6
Sugars	23	11

If you decide to give this a go, or have made something similar in the past, please let me know what your flavour combos were... I'm all up for inspiration!

Instant Porridge Pots

Breakfast. Quite possibly my favourite meal of the day. There’s almost always time to make something more interesting than a bowl of cereal or toast. Smoothies, porridge, pancakes, yogurt and eggs all feature regularly on my breakfast menu. I’ve even made my own yogurt in the past, which is surprisingly easy and requires little effort. Many’s the time I’ve gone to bed at night full of anticipation for the meal I’ve planned to start the next day with. I always make time for it and try to make it a moment of calm; sitting at the table looking out at the birds and squirrels or curled up in my big wicker chair with hands wrapped around a bowl of something, coffee made in a cafetiere and served in one of my favourite cup and saucer sets.

If I’m not hungry before I have to go to work, I’ll take breakfast with me to eat when I get there, rather than eat before I’m ready as this usually just means I get hungry again about an hour later anyway. What I don’t do is skip it. Ever. Bad things happen when I do.

I recently had a smoothie phase but at the moment I’m in a porridge phase and in particular portable porridge. I expect most people are familiar with the sachets of porridge you can get that just require the addition of milk, bowl and microwave. These are great but these can be expensive and sugar laden and of course require access to a microwave. What’s even better is a porridge that will work with just the addition of hot water. Ok, I know some people make up their porridge with water anyway but I usually like at least half the liquid to be milk, so I’ve been trialling three different “instant” porridges that only need you to add hot water, stir and wait a couple of minutes before eating.

First up are the porridge pots from TheProteinWorks. These individual pots come with a spoon in 4 delicious flavours, plain, chocolate and banana, apple and cinnamon and mixed berry. I've tried mixed berry and banana chic chip are bothvery tasty, not too sweet and extremely filling. It kept me feeling full for about 5 hours – virtually unheard of! They have a very high protein content which accounts for this. You can only order these online and they cost £1.79 each but they’re nutritionally balanced and certainly serve a purpose. You can find similar, lower protein porridge pots that just require the addition of hot water, in the supermarkets.

There were no chocolate chips in this banana choc chip porridge pot

Next up is a porridge pot designed by my OH. Having examined several recipes he came up with his own concoction which he gave me a sample of. He uses old pasta sauce tubs for transport/serving which work a treat! This concoction has a mix of regular porridge oats and rolled oats, some cinnamon, brown sugar and milk powder. It takes a while to soak up the liquid once added and isn’t as creamy as I like. It didn’t fill me up as much as my usual porridge but it was good for a standby with a handful of raisins thrown in. A squeeze of maple syrup would be a grand addition and it did taste fantastic with a spoonful of morello cherry preserve.

Portable porridge with raisins

Finally we have Jack Monroe’s (aka A Girl Called Jack) recipe. I left out the sultanas as I wanted the flexibility to add different things (and not everything goes with sultanas). I found I needed to add slightly less liquid than I would when making porridge normally but the consistency was great although not as filling as TPW pots. I added a tablespoon of apple and blackberry jam on this occasion.

Porridge with apple and blackberry jam - NOM!

The benefit of making up your own instant porridge is that it’s really cheap and the basic mix is plain which provides a great base to get creative. As someone who rarely eats the same thing two mornings running this is perfect. I can add fresh or dried fruits, nuts, seeds, honey, maple syrup… chocolate chips! Some of the fruit and seed snack packs I get in my subscription boxes are perfect for adding interest to a plain porridge pot and add variety without having to buy lots of packets of different things.

What’s your favourite porridge topping or other portable breakfast?

Protein Powder Comparison

What do you talk about with your friends when you meet up? Jobs? Holiday plans? Love life? It seems a certain set of my friends and I can spend the better part of an evening geeking out about health and fitness. One of the reasons I love the twitter and facebook communities I’m part of is that I can talk about these sorts of things with like-minded people and not bore them to tears. It’s even better that I can do this in real life too!

Aside from discussing our training goals, race plans and the January over-crowding in the gym we got on to nutrition; a subject which is at the forefront of my mind these days. Specifically we started discussing the merits of different protein powders. I use products from MyProtein and TheProteinWorks. My friend uses MonkeyNutrition and I’ve recently discovered Pro-10 and TheNatural Whey Company. It got me wondering about the merits of different brands and the comparison between whey and soy proteins. I’ve written a number of articles about soy protein for TheProteinWorks but have never looked in detail at the differences between the products. So I’ve put together a handy table comparing five brands of whey and soy protein that I’m familiar with and reproduced it below for you as a handy resource.

 Whey Protein

Soy Protein

I included Holland & Barrett to represent the high street as I know not everyone buys online. Neither Monkey Nutrition nor The Natural Whey Company stock a soy protein at present (that I could find) so we can’t compare them on that count.

It truly depends on what your priorities are, as to which you think is best. At the top end of the price bracket online we have Monkey Nutrition and Pro-10 pretty much level pegging on calories and protein content with Pro-10 Whey Protein Isolate coming in at around half the price. However MyProtein’s Soy Isolate just about pips them both to the post considering cal/protein content and value for money. If you want something low-fat and low-carb then I’d say Monkey Nutrition’s the one to choose but MyProtein Soy Isolate is the best value for money.

Across the board, where a brand stocks both a whey and a soy protein, the soy protein gives you a bigger protein hit with less fat content and is around half the price by weight. The soy comes in slightly higher on calories but you’d need to consider the carb and sugar levels… some brands soy protein are higher in these than their whey counterparts, some aren’t.

It’s certainly made me consider what I want from my protein. I currently use Whey Protein 80 from TheProteinWorks most frequently. They do an amazing range of flavours and the carb content doesn’t bother me. I’m just trying to get some more protein in my diet. I may switch brands in the future if my goals change but it still has to taste good!

Was this article helpful? What brand of protein do you use (if any) and what are your reasons for using it?

Wow what a year!

This really has been the most amazing year. It’s not been a straightforward one. There have been sad, difficult and painful times but a lot of joy, fun, surprises and flat out incredible moments. I’m not exactly where I thought I’d be, I reckon I overshot the mark there and I certainly achieved more than I thought possible, in so many ways.

I find it useful to take stock at the end of each year, to think about the events, what I’m thankful for and to get a feel for the coming 12 months and this year I’d like to say a few things publicly.

Thanks

Firstly, a few thank you's. Thank you to all of you for reading my blog, for interacting here, on facebook or twitter and stopping me from just typing into the void. You guys make this a whole lot more fun.

Thank you to everyone who sponsored me early in the year and helped me to support the Scleroderma Society. Together we made a huge difference to a small charity.

Me and my Aunt, who inspired my charity choice

Thank you to all of my friends who have stuck by me. You’ve helped me through house moves, crazy training and race schedules, put up with me talking incessantly about said crazy training and race schedules and even encouraged me and pushed me to achieve some of the amazing things I’ve done this year. Without Anita-the-Crazy I certainly wouldn’t have done Tough Mudder, for instance.

Most of all thank you to my family, in particular my mum, dad, aunt and godparents. You mean the world to me and have done SO much for me this year.

Dad-hug post-marathon

Gratitude

I’m grateful for the opportunities this blog and the health and fitness community have afforded me. I wouldn’t have met @amerbob for some of the most fun runs I’ve done this year, I wouldn’t have gone to the Run MummyRun social and made new friends there, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to write for The Protein Works or go to the Write This Run conference and I wouldn’t have been able to write blogs or articles for other sites either.

@amerbob, Anna and me - who knew marathon running could be so fun

I’m grateful for the life change in February that meant I threw myself into my training as a coping mechanism. Silver linings…

I’m grateful for my health, especially now I’m not 100%, and for the fact I managed to get through the year injury-free.

Achievements

This year I’ve taken part in 21 races: 2 marathons, 3 half marathons, 7 x 10k’s, 2 x 5ks, 3 triathlons, an open water swim and 5 others that don’t fall into a category. I’ve gotten through 2 pairs of trainers, logged 634 running miles on the Garmin, swum 10,200 meters and cycled around 143 miles. I’ve set 8 new PBs in the process. I also had my first microadventure, started my Advanced Diploma in Personal Training and became a qualified Gym Instructor.

Plans

I have lots of exciting plans for next year. I aim to be a qualified Personal Trainer by the end of June and will hopefully finish the entire qualification by the end of the year. I would love to start working as a PT and to continue writing for and working with the brands I’ve connected with this year. My studies are going to take quite a bit of time so I won’t be racing as much but I do want to work on my speed and hope to set new PBs of sub-25 for 5k, sub 55 for 10k and sub 2 hour half marathon. I am registered for the following races already:

10 miles Carnival Du Nice

Dorney Lake 10k

Surrey Half Marathon

Electric Run

Bacchus Half Marathon

And I intend to do my first ultra and/or 24 hour event (as part of a team). I’m considering these other events:

Glow in the Park

Royal Berkshire 10k

Samaritans 10k

Equinox24

Gatliff 50k

It would be great to know if you’re taking part in any of them too. Perhaps we can say hi to each other. I’d love to hear about your plans for next year and how you feel about 2013. Did you have goals? Did you meet them? Did you surprise yourself? Feel free to write a few words or pop a link to your blog post in the comments below.

In any case, I hope this point in the year finds you happy and healthy and that 2014 is full of adventures for you.

Exploring Unusual Whey Protein Flavours

As a thank you for writing a number of articles for them recently, The Protein Works gave me some credit to redeem for their products. This has given me the perfect opportunity to try a number of different flavours and ways of using protein powders. I'm still very much a novice when it comes to using this stuff but it's been fun experimenting.

I ordered three flavours to try; Rhubarb & Custard, Cherry Bakewell and Butterscotch Ripple. Honestly, their range of flavours is incredible, particularly in the Whey Protein range… Jaffa Cake flavour anyone? Mint Choc Chip? Rum 'n' Raisin?! The unflavoured stuff is more versatile, for sure, and of course it's not difficult to add your own flavourings, but these sounded fun so what the heck?

Rhubarb & Custard and apple "crumble" smoothie

First off, inspired by a recipe in my new Abel & Cole cook book, I tried the Rhubarb & Custard flavour  whizzed up with a handful of frozen chopped apple, 200ml skimmed milk and 2 tbs porridge oats. These flavours worked really well together, a bit like a fruit crumble!

Butterscotch Ripple and banana oat breakfast shake

Next up I combined the Butterscotch Ripple with a chopped, frozen banana, 200ml semi-skimmed milk and 2 tbs porridge oats. This was absolutely delicious; another winner people! The Butterscotch Ripple combo also works exceedingly well with a peeled and de-seeded pear substituted for the banana. As a point of note, I would add the oats after you've finished blending and leave it to stand for a while, or even overnight, so that it thickens up a bit. Blended oats can be a little gritty.

I then stepped outside the comfort zone of smoothies and tried protein microwave cake using this recipe. I used the Cherry Bakewell flavour here as I thought that might be pretty tasty. Well, dear reader, I'm afraid this didn't turn out quite so well. The taste was lovely but I don't think I mixed it enough, it seemed to need a fair bit longer in the microwave than the recipe suggested and I ended up with little lumps of protein in the cake… but feel free to try the recipe yourself!

Disclaimer: I have not been asked to write this review let alone a positive one. I just fancied sharing my ideas with you good folks. The products were not gifted, I merely used credit that I earn by writing articles for the company. 

These are a few of my favourite things...

This week has been utterly brilliant and full of all my favourite things. If only I could find a way to make a living from learning, watching films, seeing my friends, cooking and going to the gym I think I'd be truly happy forever.

I got my exam results from the weekend (97% for my Core Training) and started the e-learning for my Nutrition and Weight Management course. I also started another online course through FutureLearn, in conjunction with the Open University and the University of Warwick, called "The Mind is Flat: the shocking shallowness of human psychology". I thought it might be a good thing to do alongside my PT course to get a bit more insight into the human psychology which might help me with positioning myself as a trainer further down the line. I've completed the material for week one and it's hugely interesting, regardless of whether or not I'll be to apply it.

I've managed to do some sort of exercise almost every day, walking the dogs, PT session, Body Balance, gym sessions and more treadmill walking for FitFlop testing. My abs finally stopped aching round about Wednesday and the arms took over. I'm finally feeling like I'm making some progress on the speed and strength front; I've added an extra interval to my speed session and finally increased the weights on part of my strength routine.

Alcoholic yogurt... mmmm yes please!

In foodie news I got a delivery from TheProteinWorks of some of their new Cherry and Almond flapjacks, which were on offer and are absolutely delicious. I also tracked down some of the new Raspberry and Amaretto yogurt from The Collective on offer at Waitrose... also amazingly scrummy. I had to be very controlled and not buy every yogurt flavour I fancied trying. I think I'm the only person on earth who gets more seduced by the yogurt aisle than the cake aisle in the supermarket. I'm not convinced it's a much healthier habit to have sometimes. My tomato plants finally got ripped out and stripped of the remaining fruits which lead to a batch of green tomato soup to see me through the weeks lunches; another success which I'll share soon.

Segway-ing in Chicago. Love that skyline. I miss it. I'm booking a flight right now...

This weekend I'm skipping parkrun again and taking my friend's eldest lad on a segway adventure. I'm not sure who's more excited. I've been on a segway before in Chicago but I think this is going to be a bit more rugged. On Sunday I'm going to the ice hockey again but this time I'm taking my fella. We're seeing the Bracknell Bees play the Telford Tigers. We have upstairs seats this time so it'll be a very different experience for me. 

So it's been a very full week, and that's without mentioning the cinema trip and socialising! I'm holding out hope that next week will continue the trend. What's been your highlight this week? Have you done any of the things that make you truly happy?

Incidentally if you fancy trying some of those fancy new flapjacks, or indeed the brand new porridge pots from The Protein Works, not only do they have both on offer but if you order via this link you will get 250g of their premium Whey Protein 80 in whichever flavour you prefer absolutely FREE if it's your first order.

Writing for The Protein Works

I have some exciting news! I've just been accepted as a writer for THE PROTEIN WORKS™.

Who are these people? Well in their own words they are an original and innovative sports nutrition brand that was created out of a passion for sports nutrition and a vision to raise the bar in terms of product quality and level of service for sports nutrition customers. Their philosophy is Pure, Proven and Personal; they only use natural flavours and colours in all thier products, specify the protein types and amounts of each product on so you have complete transparency on what you are buying and given you the opportunity to Create Your Own formula.

I'll be looking specifically at Soy Protein and you'll be able to read my articles as they're posted at The Locker Room™ and if you want to try any of their products use my referal code (VR29505), spend £10 on their first order and you'll get 250g of their best-selling whey protein absolutely free! I also recommend you follow them on twitter to get the heads up on the deals (there's always a deal).